


A Perfect Falcon

by LaDonnaErrante, Laura_McEwan



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Johnlock light, Podfic, Podfic Collaboration, Podfic Length: 10-20 Minutes, Post-Reichenbach, Sherlock in Nepal, ghost!John
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-31
Updated: 2014-01-31
Packaged: 2018-01-10 12:00:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,248
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1159496
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LaDonnaErrante/pseuds/LaDonnaErrante, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Laura_McEwan/pseuds/Laura_McEwan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sherlock travels from Dharamsala to Muktinath.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Perfect Falcon

**Author's Note:**

> A fic and podfic for Pod_Together Lightning January 2014
> 
>  **Note from the author:** Collaborating with Laura_McEwan has been a joy! Her thoughts, insights and careful proofreading have greatly enhanced this fanwork! As an author I have tried as much as possible to avoid orientalist tropes and stereotypes and to do careful research about the people and places portrayed. One weakness of this story is that the characters outside of Sherlock Canon, all of whom are of color in this story, are not fully developed here. My hope is that I have at least succeeded in not relegating them to the status of ‘background objects’. The title comes from Rumi’s “The Seed Market”, translated by Coleman Barks. 
> 
> **Note from the reader:** This was my first experience with directly working with the author to help develop a story meant to be read aloud. I have had the best time collaborating with La Donna Errante and this stands out as a sparkling jewel when I think back on January 2014. 
> 
> Music for this podfic is “Jerome and Irving”, performed by The Self Help Group.

**PodFic can be found here:**

**[MP3](http://pt-lightning.parakaproductions.com/round2/laulad/A_Perfect_Falcon.mp3) [  
](http://pt-lightning.parakaproductions.com/round2/laulad/A_Perfect_Falcon.mp3) **

[ **M4B** ](http://pt-lightning.parakaproductions.com/round2/laulad/A%20Perfect%20Falcon.m4b)

**Or stream it!**

 

 

**Dharamsala**

  
“Ah. Mr. Sigerson. I am so glad you were able to come.” The Dalai Lama welcomes him in a sparsely appointed hall. “You know, I presume, why I have asked you.” It comes as a statement and not a question.

  
_Simple. A child could figure it out,_ Sherlock nearly blurts out, but is stopped by the sudden image of John’s face, lips pursed and an expression of warning. _Oh._ He takes a deep breath.

  
“I was not aware His Holiness had a need for an adventurer; it is puzzling.”

  
The Dalai Lama’s eyes are warm and bright but not without their share of worry. A look of doubt crosses his face briefly. “Not an adventurer, Mr. Sigerson. A detective.”

  
“And what use, might Your Holiness have, of a detective? If I were such a person.” Now they were getting down to business.

  
“I have heard that you, Mr. Sigerson, are an adventurer with a particular talent for helping others bring injustice to light. My contacts tell me you have a special gift. ”

  
Sherlock nods and His Holiness smiles. John elbows him, or at least that’s what he thinks John might have done, if he were here, but what would it mean, he wonders. Another look at the Dalai Lama’s face, and it hits him. _Now_ is the time to show off.

  
“Yes, well. Let’s see. This is the room you use for audiences, I can see where the seats are worn, but no one has sat in them for at least three days, likely longer. By the rust starting to form on the edge of the teapot sitting in the corner, I’d say its been more like two weeks. So you’ve been kept away. You haven’t been giving classes either, judging by the state of the outer courtyard. So there’s something wrong, but not here in Dharamsala. Your face is tanned but your arms aren't and your lips are chapped suggesting trekking into the high mountains, so the problem must be a remote monastery. And it’s a worldly problem, not one caused internally by the monks, or you wouldn’t be coming to me to solve it for you.”

  
“Very good. There is a temple in Nepal, at Muktinath. Muktinath is cared for by a group of nuns, who are very dedicated but they are led by an abbot who became corrupt. I suspect that a drug lord, hiding from the international police, is staying there. But no one has been able to prove this one way or the other.”

  
“You would like me to go there and uncover the truth.”

  
“Yes. In disguise, as the new abbot. You can do this, yes?”

  
“Of course,” Sherlock says, although he isn’t sure. Dressing as a clergyman or construction worker for a day is one thing, but inhabiting the life of a spiritual leader is quite another. _You haven’t got a spiritual bone in your body,_ John’s voice rings out in his head. John, who believes in God and goes to Easter Mass; “superstitious”, Sherlock had called him. John, who uttered a prayer with what he believed to be his last words. John, who, were he here, would call Sherlock an idiot for even entertaining the thought. But the work involved in taking down Moriarty’s network has been tedious and simple. He needs a good puzzle.

  
“Are you acquainted with the life and spirit of a Buddhist monk?”

  
Sherlock falters. “Only in a superficial, intellectual way. Enough to understand the basic premises and appreciate the emphasis on the middle road: most people are middling. Though the whole idea of enlightenment is quite preposterous.”

  
His Holiness sighs.

  
_A bit not good,_ chimes the voice in Sherlock’s head. It reminds him of who he is and who he isn’t. And who he is missing.

  
John would have complained bitterly of course, about the foolishness of this strategy and how likely it would be that they would be run out of town by the local people once discovered. But it would have been only a lovingly disgruntled attitude and secretly John would have loved this. Meeting the Dalai Lama, trekking through the Himalayas, spending time secluded in a monastery. It would be utterly ridiculous of him of course, having been a soldier, a committed army man, to have wanted to meet His Holiness, a man of complete peace. But that was John, a bundle of contradictions, guiding Sherlock somehow towards more humane interactions. What would John be mouthing to him now?  
Sherlock clears his throat. “My apologies. Perhaps I have not learned as deeply as is required to understand the concept.”

  
“Very well.” The Dalai Lama’s tone is terse. “You will stay here with the monks for a few days, to learn, if you can. Then you will fly to Kathmandu.”  
Sherlock nods his assent.

 

  
**Kathmandu**

  
The marketplace in Kathmandu is crowded with people and livestock. Women call out, selling their wares. A tall man with pale skin makes his way through the streets and alleyways between stalls. Sherlock is covered almost completely in the red robe of a Lama, but makes no effort to hide his white skin. His bald head stands out starkly against the brilliantly colored clothes and wares of the market. There are whispers and stares: Europeans trek through all the time claiming to be Buddhist, but no one has ever seen a white Lama. Sherlock, who is used to ignoring all sorts of irrelevant data, does his best to move through the market with as little fuss as possible. Though John would never have let him get away with it. _Always have to stand out, don’t you?_ There wouldn’t be any malice in it, though. He does his best not to think about it and walks briskly to a certain stall, filled with copper cooking pots. Within sits a wizened woman, many gold hoops adorning her ears, one in her nose. A smile comes over her wrinkled face. She greets him, pressing her palms together and lifting them towards her face.

  
“Namaskar.”

  
“Namaste,” he responds.

  
He enters the stall, banging his head on one of the large pans.

  
“You are wanting cooking pots, yes?”

  
He grimaces, but manages not to correct her. They both know that the reason that he has come has nothing to do with pots and pans.  
“I am looking for Shree Gurung. I’m going to Ranipauwa and I need a guide to get me there.”

  
“Can’t help you. Sorry. Only pots for making curry here.”

  
Sherlock huffs impatiently. The woman raises an eyebrow.

  
“Let’s drop the charade, Mrs. Gurung. Your family are the best mountain guides in Nepal. I am the new abbot at Muktinath, sent, as you well know, by His Holiness the Dalai Lama. Really, there’s no need to make me jump through the usual hoops. So please, just tell me where I can find your son and when I should be ready to depart.”

  
“Okay, okay, an English Lama...Most British people, they want a Sherpa.”

  
He scoffs. “You must really think I’m an idiot.” He coughs slightly, but the action does not suit him; it is as if the expression belongs to someone else. It’s what John would have done: a warning. Not very subtle, his army doctor, though neither was Sherlock. So, he attempts to rectify his blunder as best he can.

  
“Forgive me. I only mean, that as I have been studying with His Holiness for some time now, I have become well acquainted with your corner of the world, Mrs. Gurung. I’m well aware that the Sherpa are only one of many ethnic groups here.”

  
She grunts in agreement and pulls out a map to show him where to go next.

 

**The Road to Muktinath**

  
Sherlock has picked up just enough Nepali to know that his guide is being cheated out of a significant portion of his living by his brother-in-law. As they climb the steep mountainside he contemplates whether or not he should say something about it. Before John, he never would have given it a moment’s thought. The words would have just come tumbling out in a rush. But here in the crisp mountain air, pretending that he is an enlightened Lama, even without John to steer him, he finds that the charitable thing to do is to keep silent. It is quite likely that Shree is fully aware of the situation and simply pointing it out would be counter productive. And so they walk, with only the sound of footfalls and the wind in the trees to break the quietude. Sherlock tries to focus his mind on the few things he learned from the Dalai Lama during his stay in Dharamsala. Despite his intent to prepare for the task that lies ahead, he cannot concentrate.

  
Instead, he looks down the mountain, spotting the villages and roads below. It is not quite unlike standing on the precipice of a building, waiting to jump. John’s face comes to him; the questioning look, which he had barely made out from the roof of Bart’s, the gasping desperation in John’s voice when he realized what Sherlock was about to do. The memory arrests him. He has made several attempts to delete it and yet it remains. It is a stain, red wine spilt on a white carpet. It is wrong, Sherlock supposes, to think of his relationship with John as quite so pure. After all, he had made plenty of mistakes, each of which had been rectified or deleted. Sherlock isn’t sure why this, of all the unconscionable things he has done, is the one he cannot shake. He had loved John, but surely that was irrelevant now. There had been no choice. He’d done what was required of him. And hadn’t he found out what John really thought?

  
_You machine._

  
The echo of those words rips at the place in Sherlock’s heart that was certain of John. If anyone had seen proof that Sherlock was as far from a machine as a beating red heart could get, it was John Watson. What was the point of learning to acknowledge his emotions, of feeling so deeply for John, if John couldn’t even be bothered to notice them?

  
If Sherlock is a machine, he should be able to delete the scene of his death, the grey panicked look on John’s face as the the EMTs try to keep him out of the way, and the cracking in his voice at Sherlock’s grave. Yet he can’t even seem to shake the feeling that John should be here with him. Sherlock can imagine John looking down on the town with him, making a random remark about the beauty of the scenery or the smallness of humanity in comparison to the vast world. Sherlock would blow him off, call him a sentimental idiot. Still, it would be nice to have someone here to be sentimental so that Sherlock doesn’t have to. He indulges the feeling for a minute, his arm brushing against John’s body: as if solid and warm. The image is an illusion, he knows; a faint copy, a film stored deep in Sherlock’s mind palace that keeps popping up to haunt him like a ghost. Though he’s the one who’s supposed to be dead.

  
Sherlock looks up to the sky, stretching pale and blue until it bumps against the Himalayas, layered with snow; there are only one or two clouds in sight. A falcon flies overhead, circling slowly, riding an updraft around and around. Sherlock was never a machine, much as he prided himself on his brain, spinning like a hard drive. He knows he is the bird of prey, far above all the noise and petty messiness of emotions and the minutiae of individual lives. He sees the whole landscape, picking out only what’s relevant. Sherlock stretches his arms out into the wind and closes his eyes, feeling himself becoming untethered and floating away. He pictures Moriarty’s web from above, seeing where each little pawn fits into the larger plan, he can see the traps and the weak points, every opportunity to strike becoming clear. Next he tries London, hoping that the shift in perspective will work.

  
From a bird’s-eye view, the city comes into focus, the way he used to see it: nothing more than a map, openings and closings which direct the flow of people and traffic, all the pointless noise. He roots himself in the beating heart of the city and lets the pulse of home thrum in his veins. There is the Yard, the NHS clinic where John works, Angelo’s, Baker Street. The reality of John’s existence there crashes into him. John, waking up in the flat and padding around the kitchen, muttering under his breath first thing in the morning. No one is left to blame for failing to buy milk. John, taking the Tube to work, where he sees dreadfully boring patients day in and day out. John, eating a takeaway, watching some dull telly and wishing for the excitement of a kidnapping. John, curled in on himself in their bed, alone. John, wishing for one more miracle.

  
Sherlock sees John’s face at his grave. It is burned into his marvel of a mind. As long as it remains there, he knows he can destroy Moriarty’s web and that when he does he will perform his own resurrection. Sherlock takes in a deep breath, turns and continues on to the monastery and Muktinath.


End file.
